Police have identified the three victims found dead in a Salt Lake City home Friday night, including a 2-month-old baby girl, and a man who was found inside the residence with a firearm faces three counts of murder in connection with the case.
Advertisement
Police are calling the deaths suspicious, but they don’t believe there is any risk to the general public.
Police arrested Alexander Tran, 32, who lives in the basement of the house where the bodies were discovered, according to Chipping.
Tran lived in the home’s basement and allowed the victims to live on the home’s main floor, but Chipping didn’t know if they paid rent as formal tenants or had some other arrangement.
Officers called out to see if anyone was inside and when they entered, they discovered Tran inside the home with a gun, he said. Tran was arrested and booked into Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of three counts of aggravated murder. He said he wasn’t sure if the man was drunk or not paying attention.
“I can’t even explain how sad it is”, said Kristen Morales, a close friend of Poike.
Heike Poike, 50, and Lyrik Poike, 2 months old, were found shot to death. “It’s a movie that plays in my head and I can’t get it out”. Dennis McGowan, Salt Lake City PD, said the school worked to contact the boy’s guardian.
Heike Poike was the 8-year-old boy’s grandmother, and the baby was his sister.
The bodies were discovered after Poike’s 8-year-old grandson wasn’t picked up from elementary school on Friday. That’s when the officer came upon three bodies. Officers knocked on the front door with no answer, then looked through windows and identified a body underneath a tarp.
Police responded to the child’s address and when no one responded to the door, police searched the property and discovered an open back door.
Officers took the boy to three separate homes where his relatives live, finding nobody there, before coming to the boy’s home in the city’s Westpointe neighborhood at 639 N. Sir Philip Drive (1990 West) around 5 p.m.
Advertisement
Chipping did not know if Tran had an attorney Saturday.
